


the only thing better than a new coffee machine

by _helios (the_heliades)



Series: shitty superhero au [6]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:46:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27299683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_heliades/pseuds/_helios
Summary: Winwin was one of the best superheroes in China before he retired and disappeared at 20.Dong Sicheng, 22, is beginning to work out that perhaps he still has a place within a world of superheroes.
Series: shitty superhero au [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/795474
Comments: 5
Kudos: 74





	the only thing better than a new coffee machine

**Author's Note:**

> this is for the lovely kinah, who asked for a bit of sicheng's day within the shitty supes verse.
> 
> i hope you enjoy bubs

Dong Sicheng is a morning person in the truest sense of the word. He is awake before the sun with that lethargic ease of someone who has the time to appreciate the morning. As the dim, dawn light slowly brightens the small studio apartment he calls home, he will have his first cup of coffee for the day. It’s never anything good, Sicheng isn’t a coffee snob in the way that Johnny and Taeil are, but it’s strong and it warms him up for those few minutes that he watches the sunrise from his kitchen window.

If Sicheng had more time, and more money, he might have invested in a plant or two to brighten up apartment; something to break up the monotony of the grey walls, the grey couch, the grey carpets. He also knows that he won’t be in the apartment much longer, knows that there’s chaos waiting for him and that any and all plants he buys in the next few weeks won’t survive the move. 

(Won’t survive serial over-waterer Huang Xuxi.) 

It’s not an unpleasant place to live, despite the monotone decor that his landlady promised him she would upgrade. The special touches of his skateboard, his yoga mat, his favourite throw pillows, his chipped Frozen mug he bought on clearance a few years back are what make it cozy and his for the time being. 

He finishes his coffee and begins to wash it out, letting the soap suds swirl in the mug before he scrubs at the ring of coffee in the middle. He’d spent a moment too long watching the train rumble across the bridge over the river that morning. Normally he would rinse it out with a blast of hot water, and leave it in the sink for after work. But Sicheng deserves to run a little bit late today, wants to run a little bit late today. 

Most days Sicheng wears the uniform of baristas everywhere, black pants and a black shirt to disguise the coffee stains just that little bit. But he pulls on a nicer green sweater because he’s sure that it will survive the day in the cafe, his apron is waiting for him in the staff room in Sun&Moon with a freshly baked experiment from Doyoung. 

It’s not that long a walk between his apartment and Sun&Moon, one of the reasons he applied for the job in the first place, but he still grabs his skateboard to shorten the ride, to feel the cool, morning air in his hair, to let the world move around him while he relishes in the freedom of the morning.

He steps off the skateboard outside Sun&Moon, a few minutes after the store is supposed to open.

‘You’re late,’ Doyoung says.

‘There won’t be customers for another ten minutes,’ Sicheng says, walking past Doyoung into the staffroom.

The staffroom is a quiet place, Sicheng's refuge in the way the kitchen is Doyoung's. It's not large by any means, but it's big enough for. None of the others tend to stay there, preferring to spend their lunch breaks out in the café with the friends that filter in and out as the day passes.

Sicheng prefers to curl up in the silence of the room, with the lights dimmed to low, and when he has a busy day ahead he likes to spend a minute or two silent before the day starts. But he will not need that today, and instead loops his apron around him and washes the morning from his hands.

He wanders out to where Doyoung is loading the pastries into the display case. There's a little bit of a twist to his lips, one that tells Sicheng that Doyoung is as much annoyed by Sicheng being late as he is amused by it.

'Ten minutes?' Doyoung asks

'Five, now.'

Doyoung nods, and holds out a pastry for Sicheng to take. It looks fruity and flaky and isn't what Sicheng usually picks out himself. Sometimes, when they're alone, Sicheng wonders if Doyoung has a superpower that he doesn't even know about. It would be one so incredibly useless in the fight that he stays away from but perfect for a café, because he always knows exactly what people would like to eat.

'What sort of day are we expecting?' Doyoung asks while Sicheng wanders through the café, flicking on machine after machine to get them ready for the morning rush.

'I am expecting a quiet day,' Sicheng says, 'but you might be expecting a bit more. Yuta is coming, after all.'

There's a beat and a sigh.

'Don't leave me,' Doyoung says. Sicheng nods his head in promise, in agreement.

Sicheng is sure of many things, but he isn't sure of what he would have done if he had known that the small home he created in this café was also home to half the superheroes in Seoul. Perhaps he would have stayed, because the superheroes are the shadow of the family that's waiting for him with the promise of soon.

Perhaps if not for Doyoung, so entrenched in the life and yet running as fast as he could away from it, he would have quit and found another place to work instead.

But somehow, he has stayed.

The café always has a particular kind of quiet that washes over it. They're not a café where many people come to catch up and chat, their tables are too cramped together. Not to mention that half the staff are heroes, too alert and aware of the people around them and obvious about it enough to be offputting to most people who like to gossip.

But the silent ones, the people who like to take advantage of their free internet and cheap refills, fill up the empty chairs as they work in their relative isolation, headphones usually plugged in and focus completely away from those around them. The only sounds that fill the café are the sounds of their coffee machines, fingers typing away at keyboards and the almost inaudible playlists that Taeyong has picked together for the café.

But sometimes that silence is broken, and it's almost always done by one of the many heroes that flit in and out of the café.

Yuta arrives with about as much fanfare as he usually does, his laugh bright and loud as he and Hansol make their way across the café. Hansol’s got his laptop tucked away in a bag, and Yuta’s hair is tied up into a short ponytail. They’re not here just to pick something up, as Sicheng had thought this morning.

‘Ahhh,’ Yuta coos, leaning over the counter as Sicheng leans away, ‘if it isn’t our favourite barista. We were just talking about you, weren’t we, babe?’ He turns to look up at Hansol, who looks about as awkwardly fond as he always does.

‘We were wondering if you wanted to come over for dinner, some time,’ Hansol says, his voice quieter and lower than Yuta’s, but no less friendly. ‘We know that it's been quite difficult, coming into all of this and trying to study at the same time.'

Sicheng is reminded of the fact that Hansol is trying to balance a PhD with running a team of mismatched heroes with secondhand technology. Not for the first time, he wonders how it works. He wonders how this group had been put together and how they have managed to run for such a time after they left their agency.

'There's no pressure,' Yuta says, and he's still got that broad, friendly grin on his face.

He is the face of their group, Sicheng knows, because he is the one who gets along the best with the journalists and the photographers and the radio hosts. Months ago, that would have been enough for Sicheng to walk away. Yuta was about as high profile a superhero as one could get.

But he's the one that Jaehyun approached when he first thought of becoming a hero, and he was the one who is best at taking the sidekicks under his wing.

He would welcome Sicheng into the group, if Sicheng decided to open up the trunk in his closet and pull out the suit that he wore through his late teens.

Sicheng doesn't dare think about that.

'I'd like that, thanks,' he says instead.

‘You’ve known me for _seven years_ and you’ve never once invited me over for dinner,’ Doyoung says with a sniff, bursting through the door from the kitchen with a glare. 'I should be offended, but I don't think I even want to eat whatever concoction you think is edible for dinner.'

'I think it'll be okay,' Sicheng says with a small smile, because even though Yuta always asks for a second scoop of protein powder when he orders a smoothie, he knows that it isn't going to be so bad.

'Is this your way of asking for an invite over for dinner?' Yuta says, leaning across the counter again. His eyes are bright and sparkling, and that's all the warning Doyoung gets before the tray he's holding is yanked out of hid hands and across the counter. 'I didn't know that you cared, Doyoung!'

Doyoung has a small scowl on his face, and he reaches for the tray. He almost grabs it when it jerks away from him again, dancing just out of his reach as Yuta flicks his fingers around with a smirk.

Sicheng would confidently say that the thing that he's perhaps most ashamed of is not figuring out that they were heroes prior to the night that he found out. It isn't like any of them are subtle about it, after all.

'Yuta,' Doyoung warns, 'stop fucking around. I need to sell these cookies.'

Yuta moves the tray out of Doyoung's grasps again. Sicheng puts his own hand out and a second later Yuta has jerked the tray to the side and straight into Sicheng's waiting hands. He rolls his eyes, but hands the tray over to Doyoung.

'I still don't know how you do that,' Yuta says with a shake of his head. 'One day I'll get you.'

'No, you won't,' Sicheng says, and he's got the slightest bit of a smile on his face. Doyoung lets out a laugh of his own, taking the cookies and putting them into the display before Yuta can start messing around again.

It is, Sicheng can't help but think, nice.

Despite the loudness of Yuta's entrance and the fact his and Doyoung's teasing of each other seems to fill up the entire room without them saying a word, silence descends across the café again once Hansol and Yuta have their drinks and they've tucked themselves into a corner.

Sicheng finds it easy, to settle into the rhythm of the café as the day ticks on. He'd known that he would like it, when he first saw the ad for it in the window and saw Taeil pottering around the café trying to work out where a very ugly painting went. He still finds it easy, as Doyoung promotes himself to assistant manager on a whim, and as Taeyong gets strong-armed into creating more and more strange drink concoctions by the more adventurous university student.

It's settled strangely into his life, a group of heroes that half-live in a café, and they've begun to dig away at the walls that he put up when he put away his suit and mask. Not drawing him back into the fight, but into their lives in a way that he never thought he'd be able to.

He wasn't expecting Xuxi that morning, not with the certainty of his expecting Yuta. But he's unsurprised when his best friend's ward bursts into the cafe with one of the sidekicks following after him. They're both smiling, and although Sicheng doesn't know Mark nearly as well as he knows Donghyuck he can tell that there's something about Xuxi that has let Mark relax.

Xuxi’s presence is unexpected, but so welcome.

'Afternoon Xuxi,' Sicheng says with a smile, 'Mark.'

'Ge,' Xuxi's enthusiasm is infectious, 'how have you been? How are your plants?'

'They're good,' he says with a smile and a nod. He can't help adoring Xuxi, can't help adoring all of Kun's strange, grown children. 'They're doing very well on my window ledge.' He's already tapping in their orders, familiar with both boys separately after a few visits to the café. 'I didn't know you guys knew each other.'

'I offered to keep Mark company,' Xuxi confides, casting a look to Mark behind him, 'after what happened last month.'

Mark's smile is perhaps a bit tighter at his words, but it's not as miserable as the way he's looked for the past few weeks. He'd never been one to come to the café, before the school festival, but once Donghyuck had flown away to Jeju he had become more and more a familiar face. Sicheng wouldn't say that he was lost, but there's something that might be similar to relief at seeing Mark with Xuxi by his side.

'That's probably a good idea,' Sicheng says. 'It's important to look out for each other, and look after each other.'

He remembers, vaguely, that Kun mentioned that Mark had been following Donghyuck around. He remembers, less vaguely, that Yangyang is incredibly protective of his newly proclaimed best friend. He knows, although he doesn't know how, that Yangyang is probably behind this new combination of Mark and Xuxi hanging out for fun.

Sicheng looks at the two of them, and knows that they're going to be good for each other.

'How do you guys know each other?' Mark asks, pointing to Xuxi and Sicheng.

'Friend of his dad's,' Sicheng says with a shrug. 'We knew each other for years before Xuxi was adopted, and reconnected when they moved to Korea.'

'Oh, that's Kun right? Johnny has told me all about him.' Mark doesn't comment on the fact that Sicheng would have been friends with Kun while he was a kid, probably too used to the way their lives work in the superhero circles compared to that of regular people.

'Eugh,' Xuxi groans, 'please don't talk about Kun and Johnny.'

Sicheng laughs, because he can't really hold it back. 'Why don't you guys go sit down, your coffees are on me.' The last few words are whispered, just because he definitely doesn't want Yuta to hear that. 'Have a chat, spend some time getting to know each other.'

Laugh, he thinks, and let yourselves be teenagers, he doesn't say.

Sicheng leaves before Yuta and Hansol, leaves before Xuxi and Mark.

He hands everything over to Taeyong, who still looks as frazzled as he did when Sicheng last saw him, and ducks into the breakroom to take a few deep breaths. He finds his skateboard and his bag, but he doesn't move for a few minutes as he just lets the day wash off of him.

It's not that Sicheng dislikes working there, although customer service is a trial and a half. And he knows that this day was about as good as a day as it could get. But there's darkness and silence and solitude in this room that he allows himself to soak up as he thinks about his day, about his life.

He only leaves when his heart is steady, when he knows that he's going to be okay. And he taps Xuxi on the shoulder as he walks past, a small grin on his face at being let into Xuxi's life.

The ride back to his house isn't as peaceful as it was in the morning, when he was appreciating the dawn and the silence. It's well into the afternoon, and the cacophony of Seoul surrounds him as he navigates through the twisting streets to get back to his apartment.

He sees bright cars flash by, and people gossiping together, and it's a whole different world to the one that he had known that morning.

He ignores it, and heads up to his apartment.

Sicheng doesn't often think of who he was before, when he lived in China and fought with the best. The superhero life was one that chose him, a life of training and fighting that exhausted him before he even turned 20. He closed that door behind him, and he was finally allowed to go to university and then he had done his best to avoid it at all costs.

He had hoped, at the worst of his time as a hero, when he was shaking from fatigue but pushing forward for the next fight, that he would be able to go back to Kun when it was all over. That he would finally be able to meet the boys that would shape his best friend's life, and just be another member of Kun's mismatched family. But he finally stepped away from his work and known that it wasn't time yet, as strong as anything he'd ever felt with his powers, and Kun had understood.

He ran away to Seoul, and despite trying his best to avoid the heroes, he wound up smack bang in the middle of it again. But he doesn't hate it, doesn't fear it like he did that night when he wandered into the café and found all his co-workers and friends dressed in their hero costumes, exhausted from their own fight.

Sicheng looks around his apartment, in the brighter light of the afternoon. He doesn't love his apartment, but he likes it well enough. But he'll be moving again soon, into the bright mismatch that is Kun's penthouse home. And it's relief and it's excitement that vibrates beneath his skin.

He had spent so long avoiding heroes, determined to work in a quiet little café in a quiet little corner of Seoul. But he’d made a friend, one that was good enough to convince him to stay. And he couldn’t regret staying, he couldn’t regret letting heroes back into his life.

Because it’s worth it.


End file.
